REALISTIC RULES

Who could possibly argue with Stewart Weiss’s list of 18 rules to live by (In Plain Language, May 10)? Anyone who has the slightest understanding of the nuances of real life. That’s who.

In his second injunction, for example, Rabbi Weiss urges us to strive to find a vocation and a job that we love – preferably one that allows us to contribute to society in a positive way. Well, that’s great advice! Dale Carnegie, Daniel Goleman, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Travis Bradbury, along with the gazillions of other motivational speakers out there, couldn’t have said it better!

But life’s harsh reality is that many of us never do find that great job, no matter how hard we strive. Some of us are just born with a constellation of aptitudes and personality traits that simply don’t line up with the needs of the working world. This is particularly true of those folks who are “cursed” with a high IQ, or too many aptitudes, or an abnormally high dose of perfectionism.

We do the best we can. We work hard. But some of us don’t find a job we really and truly love and that satisfies us 24/7. That’s just the way it is.

Then, there’s injunction No. 3: to be passionate about our work, hobbies or leisure activities. Well, if we’re passionate about our work, we’re not likely to be passionate about our hobbies, since our hobbies by definition offer a release from the rigors of work! The same goes for leisure time.

Lounging in the sun at the beach? Well, flip open the unabridged version of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and start reading.

Weiss’s advice that we invest our downtime with passion and purpose seems nothing more than a tarted-up version of the Protestant work ethic – something that accounts for the abnormally high levels of stress and misery we find in the West, particularly in the US. Indeed, it’s no coincidence that Americans, who consistently work longer hours and take fewer vacation days than any other people on the face of the planet, also have the 27th-highest rate of suicide in the world – ahead of my home country, Canada (44), or Israel (118).

Or, how about injunction No. 14, that we be positive, upbeat and optimistic? I know a rabbi who was just that – and who still got divorced! Moreover, willing oneself to be positive and upbeat doesn’t always work. Sometimes it requires drug therapy. Indeed, if it were so easy to beam oneself into a beatific frame of mind, the makers of Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil would have gone out of business a long time ago! PHIL FINE Arad